Automobile magazine, Nov. 1986 issue: An interview with Bob Wallace by Ken Gross.

With the recent "threads" on the Countachs, Boxers and the Testarossas in the BB/TR section, I came across this issue and found something interesting from the article.

Regarding the Lamborghini 350GT engine and the rumor that Lamborghini bought the design from Honda: "That's non-sense," Wallace snaps. "The engine was originally a Ferrari F1 design that Giotto Bizzarrini took with him when he resigned (From Ferrari, 1961). The design work was typical of Ferrari racing engines of that era. To think anything else about the engine's origin is crap."

On the myth of why Ferruccio started building roadcars: Recalling Ferrucio Lamborghini affectionately, Wallace dismisses the old saw about his business because the clutch on his Ferrari wouldn't workand he'd failed to gain an audience with the Commendatore. "Lamborghini was already successful. He wanted another challenge. Staring his own company was a bit of an ego trip as well. He didn't have the public recognition that Ferrari did."

On the lack of Lamborghini racing program: Wallace confirms Lamborghini's dictum that there'd be "absolutely no racing involvement, even though all of us were very keen on racing. We couldn't divide our limited resources on a competition program. And that's why Bizzarrini terminated his contract."

On his days as the chief tester: "In those days, you could run the hell out of the car on public roads. We'd start out early, at 5 a.m., before the traffic got heavy. With the Miura, sometimes it was just like racing." Wallace smiles. "I'd go hunting for a Daytona or Ghibli with Prova plates and we'd run each other down the road. While we didn't really compare notes on the cars, we did become fairly good friends with Ferrari and Maserati testers."

On the Countach: "When we first began testing the Countach, Stanzani and I drove it to the Targa Floria and realized we had the basis for a much better car than if we continued to refine the Miura. Still, we had many problems, often design oversights, before we got it right."

On the Spate of recent articles favoring the Countach over the Testarossa (Remember now, this is 1986): "That's one thing motoring journalists shouldn't do," he says. "I'm not sure any writers really have the skills to evaluate those cars properly at their limits. The Testarossa is a very refined car, far superior in detailed engineering to anything we could do. Not being unfair to Lamborghini, you can't compare the two factories' resources. We often had problems in the old days with journalists overrating our cars. I guess we can tell it now. We made up special cars for the press and some of them put out a lot of power."

He also mentioned about the myth of how he and Dallara worked on the Miura secretly and only showed it to Lamborghini after it was completed. He stated that everything was planned and the car started out with 3 seats with central steering (McLaren F1-like) and a longitudinal engine. Anyway, it was an interesting article. For those of you that do not know who Bob Wallace is, he was the chief test driver for Lamborghini, he played a major role in creating the Miura and the Countach, which IMO, are the cars that defined Lamborghini cars, even to this day.